I have been living in Cathcart for the past 3 years, and, in that time, I have created a wireless community network that starts at the one end of town, as you drive in on the N6, and ends at the High School as you drive out of town towards Queenstown. Cathcart is not a big town, but we already have 7 Access Points up in town, two of which has a 7 dBi Omni antenna, and one that has a 12 dBi Omni antenna. In a previous article, CATHCART GOES WIRELESS, I have explained the use of multiple servers on the network, currently connecting:
- 61 Desktop computers
- 12 Laptops
- 4 Internet Proxy servers
With no connectivity solution for farmers in the surrounding areas around Cathcart, this community network in Cathcart can be taken out to the farmers. But first understand, COMMUNITY NETWORK means you don’t get uncensored Internet access, as the proxy servers on the network blocks all access to pornography, underground sites and P2P networks. What you then get is fast and clean Internet access. It also ensures a family-friendly approach to Internet access where parents don’t have to concern themselves with kids spending unsupervised time on the Internet. Face it, your kids know more about technology than you do.
Secondly, with the SEACOM cable arriving in South Africa last year, ISP’s are now charging as little as R197 per month for uncapped Internet access at 384 kbps. So we also don’t, and never have in the 3 years the network has been in operation, charged more than a R100 per month subscription, although we state it’s for 1 GB of bandwidth. Making the Cathcart network a profitable network is not the aim here, as the increase in users on the network enabled an upgrade from 384 kbps line to a 4 mbps line, and uncapped bandwidth on the same speed. This enabled users to use skype for smooth video calling, larger file transfers through e-mail and much more. It is now the fastest available Internet connection in Cathcart, still at a R100 per month!
If this wireless access is to be taken out of Cathcart to farmers, more Access Points need to be erected on high mountains, in line-of-sight to the surrounding farmers. Once an aerial is in line-of-sight to a farm building, a second access point, or CPE, is required to connect to the mountain access point.
The reason for not having taken the network out of town is simply the cost and risk factor involved with setting up access points on mountains. Let’s look at the cost factor in a case study, where Blackpool gets a connection to town.
BLACKPOOL AERIAL
|
EQUIPMENT |
COST |
NOTES |
|
MikroTik R/Board 800, 800MHz, 256MB RAM, 3Gigabit LAN |
R 3 332.40 |
The access point on the mountain |
|
2.4GHz – Sector Antenna – VP – 90Deg – 17dBi |
R 1 197.00 |
The 90 degree antenna/aerial pointing towards town |
|
Dbii High Power MiniPCI, 26dBm 802.11b/g |
R 650.00 |
PCI Card for the antenna above |
|
Cabling and connectors |
R 310.00 |
Cabled and connectors required |
|
UT7 Enclosure with pole mount brackets |
R 397.00 |
Weatherproof enclosure for aerial |
|
Ubiquiti NanoStation 2.XGHz b/g Outdoor CPE TX 26dBm Gain |
R 1 050.00 |
Aerial Pointing towards the Sheard farm |
|
|
R 5 886.40 |
|
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|
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|
Solar Panel - 12V, 50W |
R 1 654.56 |
|
|
Steca Solsum 6A 12/24V Regulator |
R 257.64 |
|
|
Solar Panel Bracket (fits all panels) |
R 1030.00 |
|
|
Battery 24 V |
R 980.00 |
|
|
|
R 3 922.20 |
|
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|
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Ubiquiti NanoStation 2.XGHz b/g Outdoor CPE TX 26dBm Gain |
R 1 050.00 |
CPE unit required at the Sheard farm for a connection to the Blackpool arial |
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Clearly far from a cheap solution, considering it will cost just over R10 000.00 to setup the access point on the mountain, not including the metal required to erect a high enough structure on which to mount the antenna. Then a great deal of thought, and money, has to go into securing the structure to prevent theft. It’s about here where I threw my cards on the table and said I am not prepared to invest the required R10 000 to setup 1 aerial, because if I had to put the aerial up, I would want my money back within 24-36 months. Farmers will NOT be paying R100 per month for a connection, otherwise I would be old and grey when i have my investment back!
But, the otherside of the coin, if the blackpool aerial goes up, not only the Sheard farm will be able to connect to the network, because from that mountain, other farms will be in line-of-sight and be able to connect to the Blackpool aerial for Internet access …
So this is my proposal to the farmers in the surrounding areas;
Work together in setting up aerials in strategic positions, share the setup costs, and subscription stays at R100 per month. Not for 1 GB of bandwidth, as it will be uncapped, with the understanding that if huge downloads from any user slows down the network in a particular area, that user will be soft-capped, meaning their connection will not be disconnected completely, but will slow down to a crawl, equivalent to a dialup connection.
I don’t want to be an ISP, (Internet Service Provider), because then I will have to charge much more for connections, but if the farmers stand together and work together, I am prepared and able to be a willing instrument available to them to help build a network that will get them connected, and their children’s children. My contact numbers are on the website
